The best and brighest from this week's Army Times

The Army is cutting a whopping 30 percent of its operations and maintenance budget and has issued a warning order that all commands should “slow spending now and plan for the worst.”

The good news is that the service isn’t cutting more troops than already planned. Wartime operations and Wounded Warrior programs also are protected. But the cuts will affect everything else, from your travel and training to depot maintenance and modernization. Community and recreational activities also will take a big hit.

Soldiers may soon be guarding gates and doing other jobs now covered by civilians. Base Operations Support will be cut by $2.2 billion, and posts are ordered to cut contracts as low as they can go without incurring penalties. That leaves soldiers, who will be doing a lot less training, to fill in the gaps.

2013 Military Times Insurance Guide

When the new year brings holiday bills, our thoughts often turn to getting our financial houses in order.

Don’t ignore one of the most important structural foundations: insurance needs.

Former Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha remembers his first morning at Combat Outpost Keating, deep in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

“We flew in there in the cover of darkness … and seeing it in the light and looking up at those mountains, I thought, ‘I’m going to have some of the strongest neck muscles ever, looking up at these for a year.’”

It was at this remote COP, nestled at the bottom of a valley and surrounded by towering mountains, that Romesha and his fellow soldiers from 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, faced their most harrowing, horrifying day.